Powell retires from ministry at First, Jasper

Braves baseball games and ice cream stops depict the kind of fun activities Charles Powell planned for the senior adults at First Baptist Church, Jasper.
   
Powell, always completing his suit with a bow tie, retired June 30 as associate pastor and minister of senior adults at First, Jasper, after 30 years.
   
A familiar face across the Jasper community, Powell is seen frequently in the halls of nursing homes and the Walker County Medical Center in Jasper as he visits the sick and elderly. Through the years, he has officiated at many weddings and funerals and has served as an encourager for many.  
   
Before coming to Jasper in June 1970, Powell worked with the senior adult program at First Baptist Church, Gardendale. He also served churches in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi, working in church education with students and youth as well as senior adults. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Howard College (now Samford University) in 1953 and a master’s degree in religious education from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1954.
   
When Powell joined the staff of First, Jasper, he focused on getting senior adults more involved in the overall program of the church, thus launching his ministry to senior adults (now about 700 strong). Special Bible studies, weekly discipleship classes, monthly luncheons with special programs, Friday covered-dish suppers and other events through the year led senior adults of the church to “get off the shelf and into circulation.”
   
Powell has served eight years as trustee of American Baptist Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and nine years on the Inter-Faith Baptist Fellowship Committee of Alabama. He has been affiliated with Visiting Nurses Association, United Way and the Mental Health Board and Hospice Care of Walker Co. He also is an SBC-approved senior adult Sunday School teacher and has led conferences at Shocco Springs Conference Center in Talladega and Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina. Currently, Powell is chaplain associate at Walker County Medical Center. He can communicate with the deaf and is a special friend of the deaf ministry at First, Jasper.
   
Powell met his wife, Betty, at a Baptist youth rally in Gardendale in 1951 and they were married that same year. Their daughter, Pam, and her husband, Bob Matthews, live in Minneapolis, Minn. The Matthewses are expecting their first child in August, and the Powells are looking forward to being grandparents. In 1980, the Powells lost their 25-year-old son, Chuck, in an automobile accident.